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Celebrity Chef Mario Batali owns 19 restaurants and hosts ABC’s “The Chew.” He’s a multi-millionaire, has vacation homes, and is a bona fide member of the One Percent–the top one percent of Americans in income and assets against whom the Occupy crowd pretends to rail. And yet Batali, whose nine restaurants in New York are mostly very expensive and rely on Wall Streeters and other finance industry execs for customers, is a big supporter of the Occupy movement, Occupy Wall Street, and Barack Obama. He sent some meals to the Occupy Wall Streeters camping out in New York’s Zuccotti Park. Yes, he’s a hypocrite. And, he’s even more of a hypocrite and a fraud when you consider the details of the lawsuit Batali just settled with the waitstaff at one of his very expensive restaurants. There must have been some merit to the allegations, since he paid $1.15 million to settle the suit. Another suit against him, with similar allegations, settled for much more.

Celebrity chef and restaurateur Mario Batali today agreed with his partners to pay $1.15 million to 31 workers at Del Posto, settling a 2010 labor dispute at his most expensive New York restaurant.

The agreement resolves claims alleging misappropriation of tips, racial discrimination, spread of hours pay, lost minimum wage and overtime, according to a joint statement from Del Posto’s owners and Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY), a nonprofit advocacy group for the workers. . . .

Del Posto charges $115 for its five-course dinner menu, and $145 for its tasting menu.

The owners, B&B Hospitality Group, agreed to institute sensitivity training for management and an “expansion” of paid sick days and paid vacation.

In an e-mail statement, Batali said he looks “forward to working with ROC-NY to continue to foster and improve a mutually beneficial relationship with our team.”

The joint statement also said the restaurant will work with ROC-NY to become a “High Road Employer” in the industry. . . .

Earlier this year Batali settled another tips-related lawsuit for $5.25 million.

Isn’t that true of leftists and Muslims? The most outwardly pious people turn out to be moral frauds. And we keep pandering to the likes of them as though they have a monopoly on the “moral superiority” market. It doesn’t exist with human nature.

If Yom Kippur doesn’t remind us of our shortcomings, frailties and flaws before G-d nothing will. The Mario Batalis and their Muslim ilk pretend to live by their own rules but they break them when no one is watching. This story doesn’t exactly come as a revelation.

Norman, Mario Batali was an opportunist who thought that handing out some normally overpriced meals for free would buy him some goodwill. He was akin to a charitable giver who makes a big deal about a donation. The giver of merit does not seek a huge plaque or a banquet in return for their “gift”. Mario Batali gave with one hand, while taking far more with the other.

Well, if he’s a big fatso we know Michelle Antoinette Obama-Putin hates him because she hates fat people.

What a fraud! I am glad I know this about this D-bag swine. That red-headed POS has hit every branch on the loathsome tree of Liberal hypocrisy.

These Liberals remind me of one of my favourite quotes…”The louder he spoke of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons…” Creeps like him are disgusting and even more so are the dupes who believe the horse-sh** they fling.

He is the man who dared to argue with the youngest michelin star winner, and conservative, Chef Marco Pierre White over how to cook food properly while Batali was still wet behind the ears in a kitchen. He couldn’t handle being told he was wrong.

Then he had the gaul to start a fued with Chef Gordon Ramsay (who trained under Marco Pierre White), whom I believe to be mildly conservative. We all know Gordon’s american TV shows are pure trash but his Britsih shows are amazing. He preaches hard work, consistency, and staying educated on the latest food trends and how to maximize a restaurants potential. I am serious. Watch an episode of the American Kitchen Nightmares then fire up netflix and watch a UK Kitchen Nightmares. 100% different.

Batali perhaps worked hard at a young age but once he earned praise for working at White’s restaurant he moved on, abusing that fame to kickstart his career. He has done nothing of importance for the food world since then. He had a mildly entertaining show on Food Network (back when it had ACTUAL CHEFS and not glorified home cooks who wouldn’t know how to bake a cake from scratch), and has snowballed that into a career famous for stealing from his employees and his world renowned indulgences. He is a portly man to say the least and there are tons of stories celebrating his over consumption of wine. At least one I recall was of him drinking 4 bottles of highly expensive (of course) wine in ONE SITTING at a restaurant.

A man who preaches sustainability in cooking sure has no qualms about abusing and over using expensive foreign items to his own liking while looking down his nose telling the poor citizens how they should live and take down the machine that the fat chef himself is a part of.

Homercles, your post was very interesting. I especially appreciated your take on the differences between the UK shows of Gordon Ramsay and the Yank shows. I think I know why but what is your opinion on the vast differences?

I have never watched his shows because I do not like the nutter bombast. He just seemed like an insane Pom to me so i avoided him gleefully. But your take has got me interested in the compare and contrast.

The UK show doesn’t fall into the trappings of manufactured American reality shows. In the UK episode you see him try to reignite the spark in older chefs who have lost their passion plus you see him take an interest in younger chefs and really mentor them.

Of course in the US version he MAY be doing this but the issue is that the show glosses over it for the scremaing matches.

If you have netflix please watch some episodes of the UK Kitchen Nightmares. It may be called Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares on there. It feels slower paced with Ramsay himself doing the narration and the non-hyper music and quick cut editing, but it is much more interesting of a concept and makes me wish the BBC would do more.

He also had a show called The F Word. It was a variety show sort of where each episodes main story arc was a group of people would come to one of his restaurants in the UK and he would teach them how to make a starter, a main, and a dessert. They then would have to make 50 covers for each round then after each course the diners would say if the dish was good enough to pay for. Each season was a new competition.

While this narrative was happening there would be quick 60-90 cuts of Gordon preparing the dishes in his house which would show his passion for cooking and perfection plus show the viewer the fancy food really isn’t that hard to make.

It also would focus on some news in the food world.

Gordon isn’t a screaming d*ck like most of his American shows have led us to believe.

Also, check out the US MasterChef show he co-hosts. The way he treats the amatuer chefs is amazing.

The partnership denied “all of the workers’ allegations”, yet paid over a million dollars to settle. Looks like lawyers extorting money using the fear of larger settlements should the case proceed. I’m curious how many timecards Batali ever looked at.